“He is one of the two or three best specialists in social issues in FranceJacques Delors said of her with admiration. She is hardworking, rigorous and scrupulous in analyzing the facts. » She had a passion for social issues and she cconsecrated his life. Former social adviser to Michel Rocard, ex-president of the National Observatory of Poverty and Social Exclusion, Marie-Thérèse Join-Lambert died on March 22 in Paris at the age of 86.
Daughter of Professor Raoul Kourilsky, she was born on 1is October 1936 in Paris. After studying at the Janson-de-Sailly high school, in the 16e arrondissement, a graduate of Sciences Po Paris, she married, in 1960, Christian Join-Lambert (died in 2016), magistrate at the Court of Auditors, collaborator of Alain Savary at the Ministry of National Education. She follows her husband to Algeria, where he does his military service, and works in a social studies workshop. Back in France, she stopped for a year to raise her first daughter, Natalie, a birth followed by that of Odile.
The great cause of Marie-Thérèse Join-Lambert is the social. Chargé de mission at the General Planning Commission, she reports on the work of the VIe plan (1971-1975) on employment. She met Jacques Delors there, “this extraordinary man” who teaches him “the sense of compromise, of listening”. Director of studies at the National Employment Agency (1974-1977), she was assistant rapporteur at the Center for the Study of Income and Costs until 1981, when she joined as technical adviser in charge of employment and salaries at Pierre Mauroy’s office. Head of the social affairs department at the General Planning Commission (1981-1985), she was appointed, in 1985, general inspector of social affairs.
Close to Martine Aubry
Having navigated in a post-sixty-eight universe, Marie-Thérèse Join-Lambert is close to the second left and the CFDT, but is not a political activist. In May 1988, Jean-Paul Huchon, chief of staff to Michel Rocard, chose her as social adviser to the prime minister. “She was an exceptional woman in her competence and her humanity,emphasizes Mr. Huchon. A social expert, with an ability to listen to trade unions, she remains a reference in terms of social policy. » Alain Bergounioux, who took over as social adviser, also praises his “very great humanity”.
“Shadow Woman”, as she defined herself, courteous and displaying, with her soft voice, a smiling authority, Marie-Thérèse Join-Lambert devoted herself to what would be her great work, from 1988 to 1990, the creation of the minimum integration income (RMI ). It’s for her first “a benefit intended to combat poverty and extreme exclusion”. Years later, she will judge that “the RMI has become by default the “third component” unemployment compensation ». She will also manage the long string of strikes, in hospitals and at the SNCF, which Michel Rocard will suffer. “She was on coal, on the ground”recalls Mr. Huchon.
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